


Night Blooming

by dreamiflame



Category: The Mummy Series
Genre: Anal Sex, Barebacking, Cunnilingus, Dubious Consent, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Outdoor Sex, Sex Pollen, Size Difference, Sloppy Seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-13 00:10:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18457475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/pseuds/dreamiflame
Summary: For days now, Ardeth had felt an itch beneath his skin that had nothing to do with the heat or the sand surrounding him. His dreams, when he could sleep, were fitful and confused.Or so he tried to tell himself.





	Night Blooming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OzQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OzQueen/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta for going above and beyond the call of duty when I couldn't corral things in a timely fashion.

For days now, Ardeth had felt an itch beneath his skin that had nothing to do with the heat or the sand surrounding him. His dreams, when he could sleep, were fitful and confused.

Or so he tried to tell himself.

His second in command, Rakim, watched him with wary eyes. “Are you having visions, Chief?”

Ardeth turned his face away and tugged the scarf around his neck higher, to filter out more of the dust around them. “No,” he said, and the lie was bitter and heavy on his tongue. And yet, he did not lie.

He was not being tormented by true visions, not this time. The Creature stayed quiet in his resting place, locked in the sands of Ahm Shere, unreachable for the next five thousand years. The Medjai kept guard, of course, and would keep guard, but Ardeth knew there was little to fear from that corner.

The Princess and her Warrior had seen to that.

His back twitched, like something wandered across it, and Ardeth bit back a curse. “I must check the oasis,” he said, and whistled for his horse.

The oasis of the night flowers haunted what little sleep he could steal. Perhaps if he went there, proved to himself that all was well…

Rakim caught his reins, holding the horse still. “The oasis of night flowers? At this time of year?”

Ardeth felt the itch in his blood start to settle. “There’s time,” he said.

“Spring comes soon,” Rakim replied, not letting go of Ardeth’s reins. “If you’re caught there-”

“I won’t be,” Ardeth said, and wondered even as he spoke if he was being made a liar by fate. “I am called, so I must attend.”

Finally, Rakim released the reins and stepped back. His face was covered by his scarf as well, but even so, Ardeth could feel the unease drifting from him. Rakim was of the newer blood, uncomfortable with the magic that threaded through Ardeth’s bloodline.

How much more uncomfortable, Ardeth wondered, would he be to know all that Ardeth knew?

He touched his fingers to his temple and his heels to the horse's flank. His heart leapt as the horse did, even as he told himself it was useless to hope. Pointless. The oasis would be empty, and he would stay to the edges, far from the potent flowers, and when this task was done, he would return to the tribes, and his duty.

The horse’s hooves ate up the miles, and the desert winds pulled at his clothes, and fate laughed at him.

When sunset came, the oasis was on the horizon, low and barely visible. An hour later, he drew up his reins at the edge, looking into the lush grass and trees, so different from the desert he lived in.

The moon was just starting to creep into the sky, but light from a fire danced among the trees, guiding him in. Ardeth slid from the horse and settled his sword so he could draw it soundlessly at a moment’s notice, and crept toward the fire.

As he got closer, he could hear water splashing gently, someone or many someones making use of the oasis’s lifegiving pool. Ardeth rested his hand on his sword and let the horse’s reins fall over its head to hold it in place. He moved forward even more carefully, until he could see between two bushes and get his first good look at the pool.

Evelyn O’Connell looked straight back at him, everything below her shoulders submerged. “Took you long enough,” she said.

Ardeth straightened and took a step back in surprise, only to land heavily against a tall, warm human wall. 

“O’Connell,” he said in greeting, not even turning his head. Somehow, he couldn’t look away from Evelyn’s eyes.

Rick rested a hand on Ardeth’s forearm for a moment, giving him just enough of a squeeze that Ardeth knew it was deliberate, then the American stepped around Ardeth, breaking his eye contact with Evelyn. 

“I’d say it’s nice to see you,” Rick said, “but as I haven’t really been sure what’s going on for days and Evy just keeps smiling mysteriously, I’m hoping you can explain. And unfortunately, since you tend to deal in end of the world stuff, I doubt I’m going to like it.”

His hand was back on Ardeth’s arm, pulling him through the bushes toward the fire, angling them both away from the pool. Ardeth managed to turn his head, a supreme effort of will, and find the moon. Rising, of course. Huge, full, yellow, and almost close enough to touch.

Somewhere in the last few weeks, he’d lost track of time. Rakim had been right. The oasis was no place for him right now. No place for any of them.

Rick shook him lightly, and Ardeth looked away from the moon, trying to ignore the movement out of the corner of his eye that was Evelyn climbing out of the pool. He fixed his eyes on Rick’s, grateful for their steadiness.

He took a breath and tasted the first, faint hint of perfume in the air. The flowers were starting their bloom.

“I can assure you, O’Connell, this has nothing to do with the end of the world,” he said. Rick’s fingers tightened on his arm, then relaxed. Ardeth tried not to breathe too deeply as he inhaled.

He could hear a rustling from their left, and hoped devoutly it was Evelyn putting something on after her swim in the pool. “But you are both in danger just the same.”

Rick’s eyes narrowed. “I knew it!” he said. “Dammit, Evy, I told you-”

“And I told you, Rick, I wanted to come to Egypt,” she said, her soft voice overriding Rick’s. “It’s our anniversary. It’s beautiful here. This is the perfect place.”

Rick was looking at her now, and Ardeth watched his friend watch his wife. He couldn’t look at her. Of the two of them, Evelyn was by far the more difficult to-

He shied away from the thought, but there was a stronger scent of flowers on the night air now, and Rick’s hand was still on his arm, heat bleeding through his sleeve to concentrate the itch in his skin. Resist, his mind supplied, shaping the word first in his native tongue and then in the English he used with them.

Evelyn was by far the more difficult to resist, but that didn’t mean Rick wasn’t also a temptation.

His thoughts were trying to scatter on the soft night breeze wafting the perfume from the oasis over them, but there was still time. “The flowers that grow here, their scent can cause men-”

“And women,” Evelyn added. She sounded amused. Rick was looking at him again, and Ardeth still didn’t trust himself to look at her.

“-and women,” he amended, trying to speed up his words, “to act strangely, in ways that unlike them. We need to get away from the flowers.”

For a moment, Ardeth thought he had been in time, that despite his restless dreams he tried not to remember, and the itch beneath his skin, that he had managed to avert this particular disaster.

But fate was a powerful thing, and Evelyn O’Connell liked to unravel carefully made plans.

The privileges of her rank.

“Too late,” she said, right behind his right shoulder, and when he turned to face her, the flower in her hand burst into full bloom, pollen dusting thickly over all three of them.

They all sneezed. Ardeth felt the itch in his skin turn inward and outward at once, kindling a fire in his blood. “Why?” he asked, instead of the curse he wanted to say.

He was looking full at Evelyn now, and she gave him the same sort of mysterious smile Rick had been speaking of. “Because we missed you, and you never come to visit anymore,” she said, and dropped the spent flower on the ground. 

She stepped over it, closer to him, and laid her hand ever so gently on his face. “Guardian,” she said, in Ancient Egyptian, and Ardeth felt his eyes drift shut.

Her fingers were so warm on his skin. “You can still walk away,” she said, her voice softer than ever. “I just thought, here, in this time, in this place, it would be easier for you. For both of you,” and Ardeth could feel the heat drifting from Rick’s body, so close to the two of them, although they were no longer touching.

“Just for us?” Rick asked. He sounded winded, unable to catch enough air, Ardeth risked a glance at him and the blue of Rick’s eyes was the heart of a flame, searing in its intensity.

Evelyn laughed. “Yes, my love. I have no problem saying that I think you’re both very handsome men and I hope you’ll start touching me soon.” Her smile was wicked and promising and everything Ardeth ought to walk away from. She was the wife of his friend, the reincarnation of his Princess. The last thing he should be doing was touching her.

Rick made a noise that made Ardeth think the man’s thoughts were definitely focused on touching his wife. Evelyn laid her other hand on Rick’s chest, holding him in place with barely a touch.

“See? I can say that. But you, I think you both need a little help admitting your desires.”

“Not for you,” Rick grated out. Ardeth shut his eyes, gathering his strength. He needed to leave. Whatever misguided idea Evelyn had been working toward, it wasn’t going to happen.

“Of course not for me,” Evelyn said, sounding just the slightest bit impatient. “For Ardeth. I’ve seen how you look at him, Rick, I’m not blind. And I’ve seen how he looks at you, too.”

“Evelyn,” Ardeth said, but when he opened his eyes he saw her stomach instead of her face, and all his words died.

They’d left him a letter in Cairo after Ahm Shere, to let him know the basics of what had happened, and to tell him the Creature was trapped there now. There had been something a little rushed in parts of it, but he had understood Evelyn had been hurt. But now, as she stood before him clad only in a shirt that had to be one of Rick’s, water droplets trickled down her skin and drew his gaze over the mess of her stomach: a scar larger than his hand.

“Touch it,” she offered, and Ardeth’s hand moved before his brain caught up. The scar was warm and softer to the touch than he had expected.

Rick put his hand over Ardeth’s, and Ardeth stilled. Their fingers tangled together, and the answering rush of heat made Ardeth feel lightheaded.

“Should we, my friend?” he asked, which had not been what he intended to say at all. But Rick was nodding, and his fingers tightened on Ardeth’s, and Evelyn beamed at them both.

“It’s about time,” she said, and grabbed their joined hands to pull them over toward the fire.

There was a bedroll near it, Ardeth saw. A very large bedroll, he thought, even given how large Rick O’Connell truly was. Evy let go of their hands and turned to face them, her hands going to her hips as she surveyed Ardeth.

“I have no idea how your clothes work, so you’ll have to show me,” she said, and leaned up to press her lips softly to his even as she tugged at his robes. Ardeth swallowed a laugh at her eagerness and caught her hands in his. As good a point as she made, about removing his clothing, he was distracted by the sweetness of her kiss.

“I thought we were sharing, love,” Rick said, and he turned Ardeth away from Evelyn to claim his own kiss. It was rougher, both of them used to leading, and Ardeth felt both the laughter and the heat rising again in his throat. He broke away from Rick’s mouth with a gasp, desperate for air, and tasted more of the flowers’ pollen in every shuddering breath.

Evelyn had dropped Rick’s shirt from her shoulders and arranged herself on the bedroll, looking up at them. 

“Less clothing,” she ordered, and Ardeth scrabbled for his belt, jumping to obey her. He could hear the sounds of Rick struggling out of his clothing beside him, but he was caught again in Evelyn’s dark eyes.

When the last of his robes fell to the sand he stepped over them and knelt at the end of the bedroll, finally letting his gaze wander the full length of Evelyn’s body. The scar on her stomach wasn’t the prettiest he’d seen, but she was alive despite it, and that made it beautiful. Her pale skin seemed to glow in the moonlight, and her smile invited him closer, to take another taste.

Rick’s hand on his back only distracted Ardeth when it trailed from his shoulder to his waist and Rick’s fingers drew fire down over Ardeth’s rump. He turned to look at Rick and was caught again by blue flame.

Allah, but these two would be the death of him. Ardeth wondered if it would really be so bad a way to go.

“My friend, for that we would need something,” he said. Ardeth may not have found his pleasures with other men before, but he knew the mechanics. Rick flushed under the moonlight.

“You’d let me?” he asked. His voice was rough and over awed, and despite the many misgivings he had, Ardeth found himself smiling.

“I trust you, O’Connell,” he said, but that seemed oddly formal, in such a place, at such a time. “Rick,” he corrected himself, and Rick smiled at him, eager and promising all at once.

Rick got up again to search a saddlebag, and Ardeth let himself look back to Evelyn. “Does this mean you’ll finally call me Evy?” she asked, and Ardeth gave her a tiny nod. Her smile was pure wickedness, and her fingers were enough to scald him as she traced over the tattoos on his chest. 

“Perfect,” she said, and then shifted her gaze to focus exclusively on the symbols inked onto his chest. “I’ve never seen these. Hold still a moment,” and then, somehow, despite the heat coursing through him, despite the hard nipples topping her lovely breasts and the pulse of blood at the base of his cock, Ardeth found himself waiting for Evy to finish translating his tattoos to her satisfaction.

Thankfully, she did it silently, her mouth forming the words as she read them, but not saying them out loud. “Oh, Ardeth,” she said once she’d finished. There was only a hint of pity in her tone, and besides, he was here with her now, skin touching in ways it had only haunted his dreams before.

“My choice,” he reminded her, and took her hand in his so he could kiss her fingertips. “My calling, as the eldest of my blood.”

Evy touched his face with her other hand, the softness of her skin making him regret the coarseness of his beard. “My guardian,” she whispered, and drew him down to her to kiss.

Ardeth was no stranger to kissing, nor even to bed play, but he’d taken no wife. His brother continued their line, and Ardeth led the Medjai, and had fought the Creature twice. But there was something warming and more delicious in kissing Evy than any other kiss he had experienced before.

Rick knelt again beside him, his hand again trailing fire down Ardeth’s back. He whimpered into Evy’s mouth, surprised at how unintimate a touch affected him so strongly.

But then, the flowers had them now.

He turned to look at Rick, who smiled and leaned over him to kiss Evy, the two of them easy and familiar with each other in a way that struck Ardeth as unspeakably beautiful. 

“Are you planning to give orders all night?” Rick asked Evy.

Evy’s laugh washed over him like warm honey. “Oh, yes. Come here, Ardeth,” she said, and Ardeth lay where she directed him, his head on her breast as Rick unstoppered a small bottle and dripped oil onto those large, blunt fingers.

She ran her slim fingers through his hair, trailing fire still, and Ardeth closed his eyes as Rick touched him gently for the first time, slick fingertip circling the ring of his anus. “Breathe, my guardian,” she said soothingly, and Ardeth lifted his head just enough to take one of her nipples into his mouth.

If he thought too much, he would tense, and Ardeth had more control over himself than to force Rick to do him harm. The noise Evy let out as he closed his teeth softly around her flesh was gratifying.

“Evy?” Rick asked, but he didn’t stop his careful caress of Ardeth’s body.

“He _bites_ ,” Evy said, sounding delighted, and Rick laughed even as he pressed the first fingertip inside of Ardeth.

Ardeth breathed deliberately out against Evy’s skin, shifted breasts, and nipped at her other nipple, too. Evy threaded her fingers through his hair and moaned, arching beneath him.

“You’re delicious,” he said, holding in a sound of his own as Rick continued exploring and touching and _moving_ his fingers in places Ardeth was very not used to having fingers. Ardeth had the fleeting thought that he was grateful to the pollen surrounding them now, as he was finding it much easier to relax than he’d feared.

The trust helped, yes, but so did the blood pounding everywhere in his body. Every inch of his skin seemed to cry out for touch, and Rick smoothed his free, huge hand down Ardeth’s back over and over, as though he could tell.

Evy tugged at his hair, and Ardeth shifted breasts again, biting his way carefully around her flesh until she moaned and shoved his head onto her nipple. “He’s a tease, too,” she told Rick, who huffed out another laugh.

This part was different, the laughter and joy in the act. “We’ve known him how long?” Rick slid his finger out, and Ardeth breathed, only to catch his breath as Rick pressed two fingers against his anus, slick and impossible to resist. “He’s not a tease, Evy, he just likes to take his time.”

“Thank you, Rick,” Ardeth said, and trailed his lips down over Evy’s stomach, tracing that terrible scar with his mouth. Evy shifted and moaned, her hands firm in his hair and hips rolling up to seek friction.

Ardeth trailed his hand up over her thigh slowly, relishing the heat and wetness he found there. He pressed an opened-mouth kiss to her scar and jerked in surprise as Rick brushed something inside him that whited out his vision. Helpless to resist, he cried out aloud as he spilled his seed over the smooth expanse of Evy’s legs.

He lost a few moments to the pleasure of his climax, floating on a wave of perfume and silken skin against his face. When Ardeth came back to himself, Evy had shifted herself beneath him, her body cushioning his as Rick pressed enormous and warm against his back.

“Back with us?” she asked, and Ardeth nodded, not quite trusting his voice. Rick turned him so they could kiss again, softer than Ardeth expected from the man. Then Rick pressed his lips to Ardeth’s shoulder.

“Ready, Ardeth?”

Rick’s cock was a warm, wet weight against the back of Ardeth’s thighs. Ardeth felt his own cock stir in response, despite the earth shattering climax he had just reached, and nodded.

Evy’s fingers wrapped around his filling cock, and squeezed, face suffused with pleasure. “You mentioned ‘ways unlike them’. Did you mean increased stamina from the flowers?”

He nodded and opened his mouth to answer her and groaned as Rick chose that moment to begin sliding into him. Ardeth hadn’t gotten a good look at Rick before Evy had stolen most of his attention, but judging from the feel, Rick was proportional all over.

Ardeth had never felt so full and stretched before in his life. He murmured something prayerful and somewhat blasphemous as Rick pressed in deeper. It didn’t hurt, Ardeth’s hot blood changing the odd stretch into a strange but still pleasurable feeling, but it was very new.

“Oh, my god,” Rick groaned into the skin on Ardeth’s neck, and pressed his mouth there to muffle himself. Ardeth could feel the trembling in Rick’s hands and body as they got even closer, and was somewhat unsurprised when Rick jerked uncontrollably and liquid warmth spread inside him.

Even that felt good, and Rick managed to catch himself on his elbows and avoid crushing Ardeth and Evy even more closely together. 

“Damn,” Rick said, and bit Ardeth’s neck, making Ardeth jerk in his turn as his cock went from stirring to full mast. “I meant for that to be more impressive.”

“Give it a minute, darling,” Evy said, and slid upward until Ardeth could see and smell her. “I’m pretty sure these flowers will help you with that.”

“Okay,” Rick agreed, and wrapped his hands around Ardeth’s wrists. He squeezed firm but gentle, and Ardeth felt wrapped in the other man, Rick using his height and strength to completely envelope Ardeth. It was another novel sensation, but not at all unwelcome.

Then Rick released his hands and rested his chin on Ardeth’s shoulder. “She likes a couple of fingers when you kiss her down there,” he said, conversationally. It took Ardeth a moment longer than normal to comprehend what Rick meant, and he was surprised to feel himself blush as he understood.

“I understand,” he said carefully, and stretched his neck to kiss again at the deathblow covering Evy’s stomach. He would get the full story of that wound another time, but he liked the way it felt beneath his tongue, the contrast with Evy’s silken skin. Then he let himself finally, finally kiss his way down her mons and nibble lightly at the top of her slit.

Evy gasped in delight again, and tugged at his hair. “Don’t tease,” she ordered, and pushed him down. “You’ve gotten to have a lovely orgasm, and Rick just had one, and I want-”

Her voice broke as Ardeth licked down the length of her cunt and traced his tongue sloppily around her clit. “Yes!” she cried, and Ardeth smiled into her curls and did it again.

Rick drew himself up and took a careful, experimental thrust that pushed Ardeth’s face harder against Evy’s pelvis. His teeth grazed over her clit and she keened, writhing beneath him.

“That means you did good,” Rick said in his ear, and shifted the angle of his hips enough on the next thrust that he brushed against the spot inside Ardeth that made him see stars. This time Ardeth hung on, but he could feel another orgasm spiraling at the base of his spine, pooling in his cock.

He braced himself as best he could against Rick’s thrusts and reached to press two careful fingers into Evy’s warmth, his mouth back over her clit. She crested again, though Ardeth wasn’t convinced she’d fully come down from the first high, and he wondered idly how much of it was the pollen, and how much was Evy herself.

Not that it mattered, he thought, then pushed it aside. He was with them now. No time to dwell on the future when the present was so delightful.

Rick managed to tip them both over into second climaxes after only a handful more of thrusts, the overwhelming strength of his body dragging Ardeth along with him. Ardeth rested his forehead on Evy’s thigh and breathed in her sweet scent, mixed with the flowers.

He feared forever after, that mixture would be what Spring smelled like to him.

Evy smoothed his hair down, then scratched lightly at the back of his neck with her nails. “As lovely as you’ve been, I think I’d like one of you inside of me now,” she said.

Rick groaned and levered himself carefully off of and out of Ardeth. Slick liquid followed in his wake, and Ardeth felt cold without all of Rick’s warm hugeness stretched over him. 

“You’re so demanding, Evy.” he said, and gripped Ardeth’s shoulder.

Ardeth turned his face to him and Rick kissed him again, licking the traces of Evy off his lips before trying to devour Ardeth with his mouth. “You okay?” he asked, and Ardeth nodded.

“Good,” Rick said, and manhandled Ardeth up the bedroll until he was lying first beside Evy, and then was helping cradle her as Rick moved into position between her legs. “I’m hoping you’re still up for more, too, because I have a feeling I’m going to need help with my librarian today.”

Evy bared her teeth and snapped at him, but she was laughing, too. For the first time, Ardeth got a good look at Rick’s cock, rising huge and thick between equally thick thighs.

He felt a mixture of surprise and impressed pride. He’d taken that inside himself? No wonder his anus felt like it was only now starting to close.

Rick fixed those heated blue eyes on Evy and held her gaze as he moved inside of her. Ardeth was abruptly reminded that he wasn’t necessary to their relationship, that the Princess and her Warrior had no real need of him. For a moment, despite Evy’s position in his arms, he wondered if he should somehow find a way to gracefully slip a way.

Then Evy’s small hands closed over his wrists with surprising force, and she convulsed in his grasp. 

“Oh, my god!” she keened, and Rick gave Ardeth a grin, moving his hips leisurely in and out of her body. Ardeth couldn’t quite see how widely Rick’s cock stretched her, but he could imagine it, and between that and Evy’s hold on him, Ardeth knew there was nowhere he could go.

Evy was insatiable, and Rick had much more stamina now that the flowers had saturated their bodies. Ardeth could more easily ignore the press of his own hard cock as he watched Rick and Evy move together. Rick’s face changed after the sixth time Evy came, and his brow furrowed as he sped up his thrusts, driving for his own release.

“Oh dear god,” he said, and tipped onto his side on the sliver of bedroll not claimed. “Ardeth, you’re up.”

“Yes, please,” Evy said, and pushed him against the blankets. Ardeth caught her elbows, then her waist as she moved against him, finally understanding she was trying to climb on top of him. Her legs were slow to respond from her many climaxes, and she shot Rick a pretend annoyed look.

“Really, Rick, you might have left me at least a few working muscles,” she scolded.

Rick laced his hands behind his head and grinned widely. “I wouldn’t dare, Evy. I know better than that.”

Ardeth found himself holding back laughter again as he helped her straddle his waist. “I see I have a high standard to meet,” he said, and Evy giggled.

“Don’t listen to him,” she said, and Ardeth held his cock up so she could lower herself down onto him. Her eyes went soft and glazed, and Evy’s lips formed a delicious looking circle, so Ardeth leaned forward and kissed her as gravity joined their bodies together.

Despite Rick’s size and girth, Evy was wet and tight around Ardeth, wrapping around his cock like they had been sculpted to fit one another. Ardeth sucked Evy’s lower lip into his mouth and nibbled on it gently, trying to rid himself of the fanciful thought. It didn’t matter how well they fit together, the Princess was not for him. No more than the Warrior was. He would have this time with them, and that would be enough.

Evy moved up and let herself fall back down, slick and hot and- Ardeth realized at once that she was slick with more than just her own wetness. Rick had spilled inside of his wife more than once, and now his friend’s seed helped ease Ardeth’s way. 

For reasons Ardeth chose not to examine too closely, the thought caused him to thrust up into Evy’s next move down, crashing their bodies together in the most delightful way.

“Oh, yes!” Evy cried, and wrapped her arms around his neck as they moved together. Unlike her leisurely time with Rick, this was more frantic, but no less fulfilling. The moon was climbing, but the flowers had peaked, and Ardeth felt alive and connected in ways he hadn’t felt before.

He felt powerful, and strong, and loved.

Evy arched her back as she came again, gripping his cock rhythmically and crying out in a mixture of English and Ancient Egyptian. Ardeth bit the soft part of her shoulder right at the base of her neck and guided her to keep moving.

It was like teaching someone to ride a horse, only of course, much more intimate.

Evy caught his face in her small hands, kissed him hard, then looked him straight in the eye. “Are you going to come again for me, my Guardian?” she asked, and Ardeth could no more refuse her order than he could refuse to keep breathing. His seed spilled and added to the mess inside her, and he felt strangely, abruptly tired. And thirsty. Extremely thirsty.

Rick helped Evy out of Ardeth’s lap and handed her a water bottle. “You finally happy?” he asked.

“I suppose,” she said, but her smile was half exhausted sweetness, and she handed the water bottle to Ardeth quickly. Rick somehow dragged himself to his feet and padded off into the darkness to douse a cloth in the pool. When Ardeth lowered the water bottle, Rick handed him the damp cloth.

He took stock of his friends as he wiped himself clean. Evy had patches of reddened skin he was pretty sure was from his beard, and a few bite marks around her breasts where he had been too eager. Rick’s back was lined with scratches from Evy’s fingernails.

Ardeth’s own wrists tingled with the imprint of the memory of both Rick and Evy holding him tightly. The place on his neck were Rick had bitten felt soft and nicely sore.

“So when you said, ‘in danger,’ this was all you meant, right?” Rick asked, sitting down again. He took the cloth from Ardeth and wiped himself down, then tossed it aside.

Evy had a cloth of her own, wiping at the mess all three of them had left on her thighs. Ardeth felt tenderness and a tired sort of heat ghost through him at the sight.

“Yes, O’Connell,” he replied, feeling like despite their continued nudity, the boundaries must begin to be reintroduced.

Rick snorted. “We are so far past that, now, buddy. Keep calling me Rick.”

Ardeth smiled. “Rick. Yes, the danger from the flowers is the lust.”

Evy tossed her cloth in the direction of the other and curled up next to Rick, reaching an imperious hand up to Ardeth before he could even think of moving away. “This can’t be a typical thing. I wouldn’t have dreamed of it if it was.”

Giving into the inevitable, Ardeth laid down on his side facing them so he could lace his fingers with Evy. “The pollen happens only on the first full moon of spring, though the flowers will still be very potent tomorrow night. We should leave before then.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Evy said, smiling wickedly. “I quite enjoyed tonight.”

“I know better than to argue with Evy,” Rick said. His eyes were already closed and his hand was draped over her stomach, covering her scar from view.

Ardeth thought again of getting up to leave, but every muscle in his body was still trembling and spent from his exertions. “You can stay if you like,” he said.

Evy kicked at the blanket at their feet, and Ardeth reached down to pull it up over the three of them. She reclaimed his hand once they were covered.

“We want you to stay, too,” Evy said, not smiling now.

Rick opened his eyes. “Yes,” he agreed, but there was more emotion than Ardeth expected in that single word.

Perhaps his fears for the future were justified, Ardeth considered. Perhaps not.

But a man afraid to accept fate offering him his fondest wish, even if only temporarily, was a fool indeed.

“If only to keep you two out of further trouble,” he said, and Evy laughed. Rick wrapped that huge hand around Ardeth’s back and drew him closer, and Ardeth smiled at them both.

Overhead the moon shone, and the night flowers bloomed. It was the first of spring, and it would be a very good year.


End file.
